Claus Adam (November 5, 1917 – July 4, 1983) was an American cellist and

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

teacher as well as a composer. His music teachers include

Emanuel Feuermann Emanuel Feuermann (November 22, 1902 – May 25, 1942) was an internationally celebrated cellist in the first half of the 20th century. Life Feuermann was born in 1902 in Kolomyja, Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Kolomyia, Ukraine) to ...

for cello,

Stefan Wolpe Stefan Wolpe (25 August 1902, Berlin – 4 April 1972, New York City) was a German-Jewish-American composer. He was associated with interdisciplinary modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop theater and the kibbutz mo ...

for composition, and

Léon Barzin Léon Eugene Barzin (November 27, 1900April 19, 1999) was a Belgian-born American conductor and founder of the National Orchestral Association (NOA), the oldest surviving training orchestra in the United States. Barzin was also the founding mu ...

for conducting. He served as the second cellist of the

Juilliard String Quartet The Juilliard String Quartet is a classical music string quartet founded in 1946 at the Juilliard School in New York by William Schuman. Since its inception, it has been the quartet-in-residence at the Juilliard School. It has received nume ...

from 1955 to 1974, preceded by Arthur Winograd and succeeded by Joel Krosnick, a former student of his. Composer and pianist

Awilda Villarini Awilda M. Villarini-Garcia (born 6 February 1940) is a Puerto Rican composer and pianist who publishes and performs under the name "Awilda Villarini." Villarini was born in Patillas. Her first piano teacher was her mother, who was a church orga ...

was also one of his students. He devoted the last decade of his life primarily to musical composition, and several of his works—including a cello concerto and a string trio—are published by G. Schirmer. Adam lived in Indonesia until he was six. His father,

Tassilo Adam Tassilo Adam (1878–1955) was a German ethnologist, photographer and filmmaker in what is now Indonesia. Adam photographed palaces, rulers and royal sights in Java, Indonesia. He also worked in Sumatra and other locations in the Dutch East Indie ...

, was an ethnologist there. He then went to Europe and studied in

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

. In 1929 he went to the USA.Wierzbicki, James, "Adam, Claus" in Hitchcock, H. Wiley and Stanley Sadie, ed, ''The New Grove Dictionary of AMerican Music''. (New York: MacMillan, 1986) p. 4

References

1917 births 1983 deaths American classical cellists American music educators 20th-century classical musicians 20th-century American musicians Juilliard String Quartet members German expatriates in Indonesia German emigrants to the United States 20th-century cellists {{Cellist-stub